Implicit versus explicit measures of self-concept of self-control and their differential predictive power for spontaneous trait-relevant behaviors

Background and objectives

Low trait self-control constitutes a core criterion in various psychiatric disorders. Personality traits such as low self-control are mostly indexed by self-report measures. However, several theorists emphasized the importance of differentiating between explicit and implicit indices of personality traits, Therefore, the present study examined the unique predictive validity of an implicit measure of trait self-control for spontaneous dysfunctional behavior.

Methods

As a measure of implicit trait self-control, we used an irrelevant feature task: a speeded reaction time task comprising a task-relevant stimulus feature (i.e., capital vs. lower case letter type) and a task-irrelevant feature (high vs. low self-control word type). The irrelevant feature had to be ignored, while participants (n = 34) responded to the relevant stimulus feature. However, their response was either congruent or incongruent with the irrelevant stimulus feature, resulting in facilitated or deteriorated task performance. As indicators of trait-related spontaneous dysfunctional behavior, we included indices of frustration tolerance and the preference for short-term reward over meeting long-term goals. We also included two explicit measures of trait self-control: a self-report questionnaire and an explicit self-relevance rating of the implicit task stimuli.

Results

Specifically the implicit measure of trait self-control showed predictive validity for the target self-control behaviors.

Limitations

The predictive validity of implicit measures of personality traits requires further study in larger, non-student samples.

Conclusions

As predicted, the implicit measure of trait self-control showed superior predictive power for spontaneous trait-related behavior. This finding points to the relevance of complementing the routinely used self-report measures with implicit measures of trait self-control.     

Implications for concepts of psychopathology of studies of economic principles in behavior therapy programs

In several studies of token economies, it has been observed repeatedly that chronic psychiatric patients conform to the same economic principles as explain the activities of presumably normal participants in the national consumer economy. Such observations are consistent with behavior therapy's assumptions that those labeled mentally ill follow the same psychological and social lows as those considered normal and that behavior is responsive to specific situational determinants. Although they disprove nothing, these observations may pose problems for more traditional approaches which view psychopathology as the result of central disorders or deficits with diffuse effects across a wide range of ordinary life situations.     

Differential involvement of amygdala and hippocampus in responding to novel objects and contexts

Different medial temporal lobe structures are involved in memory for different types of novel cues and novel relationships among familiar cues. We measured the behavior of rats with amygdala or hippocampal damage, when confronted with novelty in an incidental learning paradigm. We examined both direct and indirect measures of memory. Following habituation to an environment, proximal objects or distal cues were manipulated in several ways. We found that rats with hippocampal damage exhibited a deficit on direct measures of memory, but performed normally on all indirect measures. Rats with amygdala damage exhibited a deficit on a direct measure, and performed normally on an indirect measure, of memory for proximal object identity. Thus, the hippocampus may be necessary for success on direct measures of memory for distal cues and proximal objects and the relationships among them. Likewise, the amygdala may be necessary for success on some direct measures of memory, such as memory for aspects of proximal object identity. Neither the amygdala nor the hippocampus functions as a generalized novelty detection system. To the extent that we tap implicit and explicit knowledge using this paradigm, we suggest that in the rat, the amygdala and hippocampal systems are necessary for at least some types of explicit knowledge.     

Role of the implicit theories of intelligence in learning situations

Most studies have tried to explain the school difficulties by analysing the intellectual factors that lead to school failure. However in addition to the instrumental capacities, authors also recognize the role played by other factors such as motivation. More specifically, the theory of achievement motivation aims to determine motivational factors involved in achievement situations when the students have to demonstrate their competencies. This paradigm attributes a central place to beliefs in order to explain children's behavior in academic situations. According to Dweck, it seems that beliefs about the nature of intelligence have a very powerful impact on behavior. These implicit theories of intelligence create a meaning system or conceptual framework that influences the individual interpretation of school situations. Thus, an entity theory of intelligence is the belief that intelligence is a fixed trait, a personal quality that cannot be changed. Students who subscribe to this theory believe that although people can learn new things, their underlying intelligence remains the same. In contrast, an incremental theory of intelligence is the belief that intelligence is a malleable quality that can increase through efforts. The identification of these two theories allows us to understand the cognition and behavior of individuals in achievement situations. Many studies carried out in the academic area show that students who hold an entity theory of intelligence (ie they consider intelligence like a stable quality) have a strong tendency to attribute their failures to a fixed trait. They are more likely to blame their intelligence for ne-gative outcomes and to attribute failures to their bad intellectual ability. In contrast, students who hold an incremental theory of intelligence (ie they consider intelligence as a malleable quality) are more likely to understand the same ne-gative outcomes in terms of specific factors: they attribute them to a lack of effort. This differential emphasis on traits versus specific mediators in turn fosters different reactions to negative events. Several studies have shown that entity theorists of intelligence are more likely than incremental theorists to react helplessly in the face of failure. They are not only more likely to make negative judgments about their intelligence from the failures, but also more likely to show negative affect and behaviors. This helpless response pattern is cha-racterized by a lack of persistence, and performance decrements. In contrast, incremental theorists, who focus more on behavioral factors (eg effort, problem-solving strategies) as causes of negative achievement outcomes, tend to act on these mediators. They try harder and develop better strategies and continue to work. Some authors have tendency to consider implicit theories of intelligence as a disposition or a stable dimension. But in the last few years, several studies showed that people's theories are not fixed traits; they are beliefs that may be influenced. These studies also suggested that students use the two types of beliefs and that the context determines the choice between the two types of theories. According to these authors, the psychological state of the student depends on dispositional factors but also on situational factors. Thus, several studies have tried to demonstrate that it is possible to modify experimentally implicit theories of intelligence and subsequent cognitions and behaviors by modifying situational factors. Several studies have demonstrated that it was possible to induce students to adopt one of the two theories of intelligence by presenting them a scientific article that compelling argued for either an entity or an incremental view of intelligence. The results showed that participants who had received the entity theory induction exhibited more evidence of a helpless reaction to failure. These studies show that some of the judgments and reactions associated with implicit theories can be experimentally induced by manipulating participant theories. However in the context of school difficulties, only few works have been conducted. We think that the model of the motivation of achievement would allow us to better understand maladjusted behaviors that engender failure and scholastic exclusion. In one study, reseachers have demonstrated that children with mental disorders are less likely than other children to hold an incremental theory of their intellectual abilities. Other studies have demonstrated that entity theorists interpret their bad results according to their global intelligence level by negatively judging their global abilities ("I think I am stupid"). It is interesting to note that these students make the same attributions as depressive students. These results reveal the need to determine systems of beliefs within populations with anxiety or depressive symptoms in order to characterise their motivational profiles. Indeed, we think that these symptoms contribute to modify implicit theories of intelligence and the nature of the subsequent scholastic achievement. Finally, we think that it is inte-resting to demonstrate the positive motivational effects of the experimental induction of the incremental theory. A series of studies showed that children's theories of intelligence expe-rimentally induced will influence their tendency to persevere in the face of failure. Like normally developing children, children with mental disorders were more likely to prefer challenging activities and report high levels of interest-enjoyment when the task was presented as one which is improvable. It suggests that although children with difficulties are pessimistic about improving their intellectual capacities, if a new task is introduced in a way that highlights the possibility of self-improvement (incremental theory), then they will pursue the challenge in an adaptive manner (strong perseverance, enjoy, and important interest). These results are very inte-resting. Indeed, highlighting an incremental theory had a po-sitive motivational effect on behavior in achievement situations. In addition, all these results also may open up several interesting perspectives for the treatment of learning disabi-lities. The results should lead to plan programmes of cognitive therapy in order to modify beliefs that underlie maladjusted achievement behaviors of children and adolescents in scholastic failure.     

Implicit measures of “wanting” and “liking” in humans

Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST; e.g., Robinson and Berridge, 1993. Brain Res. Rev., 18, 291; Robinson and Berridge, 2003 Trends Neurosci., 26, 507) suggests that a common dopamine system that deals with incentive salience attribution is affected by different types of drugs. Repeated drug use will sensitize this neural system, which means that drugs increasingly trigger the experience of incentive salience or “wanting”. Importantly, Robinson and Berridge stress that there is a dissociation between drug “wanting” (the unconscious attribution of incentive salience) and drug “liking” (the unconscious hedonic experience when one consumes drugs). Whereas the former plays an essential role in the development and maintenance of drug addiction, the latter does not. Although this model was based mainly on research with non-human animals, more recently the dissociation between “wanting” and “liking” has been examined in humans as well. A widely used and promising means of studying these processes are behavioral implicit measures such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), different types of Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) tasks, and Affective Simon Tasks (AST).IST makes the clear prediction that (1) there should be a positive correlation between indices of “wanting” (e.g., drug consumption) and implicit “wanting” scores. Similarly, there should be a positive correlation between indices of “liking” (e.g., various expressions of subjective pleasure) and implicit “liking” scores; (2) there should be higher “wanting” scores in substance abusers or frequent substance users compared to non-users or infrequent users, and there should be no differences in “liking” between these groups (or even less “liking” in frequent substance users); (3) manipulations of “wanting” should affect implicit “wanting” scores whereas manipulations of “liking” should affect implicit “liking” scores. However, studies that tested these hypotheses did not produce equivocal results. To shed light on these discrepancies, we first discuss the different definitions of “wanting” and “liking” and the different tests that have been used to assess these processes. Then, we discuss whether it is reasonable to assume that these tests are valid measures of “wanting” and “liking” and we review correlational, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies that inform us about this issue. Finally, we discuss the future potential of implicit measures in research on IST and make several recommendations to improve both theory and methodology.     

Developing an implicit measure of disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity: examining the role of implicit disgust propensity and sensitivity in obsessive-compulsive tendencies

Background and objectives

There is increasing evidence that disgust responding occurs at both a primary and secondary level in the form of disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity. The unique contributions of anxiety and disgust need to be established if disgust is to be implicated in the etiology of anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The primary objective of the current study was to develop two separate implicit measures of disgust propensity and sensitivity and to explicate the role of implicit disgust propensity and sensitivity in avoidance behavior and OC tendencies.

Methods

The current study (N = 33 undergraduate students) utilized a measure of implicit cognition, the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), to independently analyze disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity. In addition, a series of behavioral approach tasks (BAT) and questionnaires measuring general disgust, obsessive-compulsive (OC) tendencies and general psychopathology were implemented to validate the implicit measures.

Results

Disgust sensitivity predicted avoidance behavior on the BATs independent of disgust propensity and anxiety, while disgust propensity did not. Both disgust propensity and sensitivity predicted self-reported OC tendencies and individually predicted obsessing and washing concerns, respectively.

Limitations

Our findings are based on a non-clinical student sample and further research is required for generalization to OCD.

Conclusions

The implicit measures appeared to be measuring two separate constructs and had differential relationships with behavior and OC tendencies. Overall, the results support current theories relating to pathological disgust and OCD.     

Nutritional effects on behavior of children

Studies of nutritional effects on behavior of children present many of the same methodological problems as studies of drugs on behavior of children. Dependent measures must be made across several classes of response at different time scales and levels of precision. A schema is presented for an integrated series of nutritional studies. The effects of missing breakfast and of simple sugars are used to illustrate several applications from this schema, including autonomic (evoked cardiac response), central (event-related potentials), and behavioral measures. Each class of measures is found to be sensitive to these nutritional manipulations. Attention and motor behavior appear to be quite sensitive to subtle nutritional effects.     

Nutritional effects on behavior of children

Studies of nutritional effects on behavior of children present many of the same methodological problems as studies of drugs on behavior of children. Dependent measures must be made across several classes of response at different time scales and levels of precision. A schema is presented for an integrated series of nutritional studies. The effects of missing breakfast and of simple sugars are used to illustrate several applications from this schema, including autonomic (evoked cardiac response), central (event-related potentials), and behavioral measures. Each class of measures is found to be sensitive to these nutritional manipulations. Attention and motor behavior appear to be quite sensitive to subtle nutritional effects.     

Decoupling implicit measures of pleasant and unpleasant social attitudes

Social attitudes are integral to understanding a wide range of pathological states. The present study adapted the Implicit Association Test, a widely used implicit measure of attitudes, for understanding social attitudes and behavior. In a first study, data from a traditional “Bipolar” IAT and our modified “Unipolar” pleasant and unpleasant IATs were compared in their associations with explicit measures of social attitudes and behavior. In a second study, we examined the relationship between implicit measures of social attitudes and social behavior during a laboratory procedure. Collectively, the present data support the uncoupling of pleasant and unpleasant valences when using implicit measures to understand social attitudes.     

Event-related potential correlates of long-term memory for briefly presented faces

Electrophysiological studies have investigated the nature of face recognition in a variety of paradigms; some have contrasted famous and novel faces in explicit memory paradigms, others have repeated faces to examine implicit memory/priming. If the general finding that implicit memory can last for up to several months also holds for novel faces, a reliable measure of it could have practical application for eyewitness testimony, given that explicit measures of eyewitness memory have at times proven fallible. The current study aimed to determine whether indirect behavioral and electrophysiological measures might yield reliable estimates of face memory over longer intervals than have typically been obtained with priming manipulations. Participants were shown 192 faces and then tested for recognition at four test delays ranging from immediately up to 1 week later. Three event-related brain potential components (e.g., N250r, N400f, and LPC) varied with memory measures although only the N250r varied regardless of explicit recognition, that is, with both repetition and recognition.     

Health of the Implicit Association Test at age 3

Since its first publication in 1998, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) has been used repeatedly to measure implicit attitudes and other automatic associations. Although there have also been a few studies critical of the IAT, there now exists substantial evidence for the IAT's convergent and discriminant validity, including new evidence reported in several of the articles in this special issue. IAT attitude measures have often correlated only weakly with explicit (self-report) measures of the same associations. It therefore seems appropriate to conclude that the IAT assesses constructs that are often (but not always) distinct from the corresponding constructs measured by self-report.     

Changes of explicitly and implicitly measured self-esteem in the treatment of major depression: Evidence for implicit self-esteem compensation

Background and objectivesSelf-esteem has been claimed to be an important factor in the development and maintenance of depression. Whereas explicit self-esteem is usually reduced in depressed individuals, studies on implicitly measured self-esteem in depression exhibit a more heterogeneous pattern of results, and the role of implicit self-esteem in depression is still ambiguous. Previous research on implicit self-esteem compensation (ISEC) revealed that implicit self-esteem can mirror processes of self-esteem compensation under conditions that threaten self-esteem. We assume that depressed individuals experience a permanent threat to their selves resulting in enduring processes of ISEC. We hypothesize that ISEC as measured by implicit self-esteem will decrease when individuals recover from depression.Methods45 patients with major depression received an integrative in-patient treatment in the Psychosomatic University Hospital Bonn, Germany. Depression was measured by the depression score of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-D). Self-esteem was assessed explicitly using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and implicitly by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Name Letter Test (NLT).ResultsAs expected for a successful treatment of depression, depression scores declined during the eight weeks of treatment and explicit self-esteem rose. In line with our hypothesis, both measures of implicit self-esteem decreased, indicating reduced processes of ISEC.LimitationsIt still remains unclear, under which conditions there is an overlap of measures of implicit and explicit self-esteem.ConclusionsThe results lend support to the concept of ISEC and demonstrate the relevance of implicit self-esteem and self-esteem compensation for the understanding of depression.     

Testing the validity of implicit measures of wanting and liking

Background and objectives

Over the last decade, there has been a surge of studies examining implicit processes underlying addiction. Some implicit measures are assumed to reflect “liking” whereas other implicit measures are assumed to reflect “wanting”. There is, however, little evidence to back up this claim. We examined whether implicit and explicit measures of wanting and of liking are differentially sensitive to manipulations of wanting and expected that these manipulations would affect primarily measures of wanting.

Methods

Smokers and non-smokers performed both implicit and explicit measures that are assumed to assess wanting and liking for smoking. Smokers were tested once immediately after smoking, and once after 12 h of nicotine-deprivation.

Results

IAT results suggested that smokers showed more implicit liking for nicotine when they were deprived than when they were satiated, whereas there were no differences in wanting. Smokers also seemed to show both more implicit wanting and more implicit liking for nicotine compared to non-smokers. Explicit measures did yield the expected results in that smokers reported to want nicotine more when they were deprived, whereas there were smaller differences in liking.

Conclusions

We found little support for the assumption that implicit measures of wanting and liking capture different processes. Researchers should thus be cautious in drawing conclusions about wanting and liking on the basis of these measures.     

Heart versus reason in condom use: implicit versus explicit attitudinal predictors of sexual behavior

We test the hypothesis that explicit and implicit measures of attitudes would differentially predict deliberate versus spontaneous behavior in the domain of condom use. Students completed explicit attitudinal and thought-listing measures about using condoms and implicit measures using attitude priming and Implicit Association Test (IAT) procedures. An attitude IAT measured the association between condom images and affective images; a self-identity IAT measured association of condoms with the self. We predicted and found that condom use with main partners was predicted by explicit measures but not implicit measures; the opposite was true for condom use with casual partners. Although the attitude priming measure was not positively correlated with casual condom use, the IATs were. The patterns of relations, however, were unexpectedly complex, due to a strong decrease in IAT effects over time, and different IATs assessing unique attitudinal dimensions.     

Event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha frequency during development of implicit and explicit learning

To understand the role of the motor cortex in implicit and explicit learning, we studied alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD) while 13 right-handed individuals performed a variation of the serial reaction time task (SRTT). EEG signals were recorded simultaneously from 29 scalp locations and the ERD was computed. During data collection, all subjects developed implicit knowledge, demonstrated by shortening of the response time, and explicit knowledge of the test sequence. The average ERD maps of all 13 subjects demonstrated that during the initial learning, there was a decline in alpha band power that was maximal over the contralateral central region. The ERD reached a transient peak amplitude at a point when the subjects attained full explicit knowledge, and diminished subsequently. The transient peak in ERD was highly significant at C3. These electrophysiologic findings support previous studies which have demonstrated that motor activity changes as behavior changes over the course of learning.     

A dissociation between implicit and explicit verbal memory in left temporal lobe epilepsy

PURPOSE: Temporal lobe epilepsy patients are well known to present deficits on explicit verbal memory procedures (e.g., recall, recognition). The integrity of implicit memory procedures in these patients is not established. Previous studies in this area used implicit memory measures contaminated by the effects of explicit memory. METHODS: We examined the integrity of verbal implicit and explicit memory in left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE) patients and hypothesized that a clear dissociation in performance would be found with a relative preservation of implicit memory. TLE patients (n = 15) and age- and education-matched healthy normal patients (n = 15) were shown a 40-word study list, followed by a test phase requiring completion of word stems based on the study words or new/unseen words. Experimental conditions involved instructions to provide either the old (study) words or novel/nonlist words when completing the stem. Measures of automaticity and recollection provided uncontaminated indices of implicit and explicit memory, respectively. RESULTS: The data showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) between the patients (Recollection, 0.12; SD, 0.18) and controls (0.50, SD, 0.15) on the measure of explicit memory. In contrast, the patients (Automaticity, 0.51; SD, 0.11) and controls (0.45, SD, 0.18) performed similarly on the implicit memory measure, with patient scores clearly at normative levels based on other Process Dissociation Procedure data. CONCLUSIONS: The data demonstrate the integrity of implicit memory in LTLE patients. Finding a dissociation between the two forms of verbal memory in LTLE patients provides evidence that they rely on different neuroanatomic systems.     

Implicit cognition is impaired and dissociable in a head-injured group with executive deficits

Implicit or non-conscious cognition is traditionally assumed to be robust to pathology but Gomez-Beldarrain et al. recently showed deficits on a single implicit task after head injury. Laboratory research suggests that implicit processes dissociate. This study therefore examined implicit cognition in 20 head-injured patients and age- and IQ-matched controls using a battery of four implicit cognition tasks: a serial reaction time task (SRT), mere exposure effect task, automatic stereotype activation and hidden co-variation detection. Patients were assessed on an extensive neuropsychological battery, and MRI scanned. Inclusion criteria included impairment on at least one measure of executive function. The patient group was impaired relative to the control group on all the implicit cognition tasks except automatic stereotype activation. Effect size analyses using the control mean and standard deviation for reference showed further dissociations across patients and across implicit tasks. Patients impaired on implicit tasks had more cognitive deficits overall than those unimpaired, and a larger dysexecutive self/other discrepancy (DEX) score suggesting greater behavioural problems. Performance on the SRT task correlated with a composite measure of executive function. Head injury thus produced heterogeneous impairments in the implicit acquisition of new information. Implicit activation of existing knowledge structures appeared intact. Impairments in implicit cognition and executive function may interact to produce dysfunctional behaviour after head injury. Future comparisons of implicit and explicit cognition should use several measures of each function, to ensure that they measure the latent variable of interest.     

Social dysdecorum following severe traumatic brain injury: loss of implicit social knowledge or loss of control?

The purpose of the present study was to investigate two theoretical frameworks for understanding acquired deficits in social behavior in individuals with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Recent research has found that brain injury can lead to impairments in implicit processes including social cognition. Impairments in implicit social cognition have been recently advanced as an explanation for acquired social deficits, as implicit social cognition is hypothesized to mediate the processing and understanding of often subtle, nonverbal cues in social interactions. In contrast, the executive dysfunction account posits that deficits in higher order cognitive functions, such as attention, planning ability, and mental flexibility, are the locus for acquired deficits in social cognition and behavior. To test these two theories, 22 participants with severe TBI and 25 matched controls were administered a measure of implicit social cognition (Implicit Association Test, IAT), as well as two measure of explicit social attitudes and a range of executive functioning measures. The TBI participants were found to perform normally on the IAT and explicit measures of gender stereotyping but demonstrated executive deficits. Performance on the IAT and executive functions were correlated. Performance in general did not fit well with the implicit social cognition explanation for social dysdecorum following TBI. More evidence was found to support the executive account.     

Perceptual priming in schizophrenia evaluated by word fragment and word stem completion

Implicit memory seems to be preserved in schizophrenia as a whole, but dissociations between conceptual and perceptual tasks and between accuracy and reaction time measures have appeared. The present research has revealed some methodological limitations in many studies to date that are focused on the study of perceptual implicit memory in schizophrenic patients using accuracy measures. The review of these studies revealed that limitations are related to an inadequate definition of performance and priming measures, a lack of control over the characteristics of the stimuli, and the absence of information on the experimental procedures used in data collection. Moreover, the task used in these studies is word stem completion, a task that makes use of perceptual and conceptual processes. In the experiment reported here we use a pure perceptual implicit task and stimuli selected from a normative database to measure perceptual implicit memory in schizophrenic patients. Their performance was compared with that of normal participants. Thirty-two schizophrenic patients and 30 healthy control participants were administered a word fragment completion task. Direct comparison between the two groups yielded similar results in priming, suggesting that perceptual implicit memory is preserved in schizophrenia.